Yes, that’s right. The North Dakota Ethics Commission is looking for prospects who may become members of the commission. Hurry, the filing deadline is June 30.
Now there were some folks – mostly legislators – who didn’t think North Dakota had enough ethics to have a commission. Technically, it is not a commission but a board but the word “commission” is used to elevate its importance in the family of 120 boards, commissions, agencies, and whatever blocks out the sunlight.
It was not easy to get a commission to oversee ethics because everyone, including some in the state prison, thought we were ethical enough. But there were naysayers who worried about lobbyists, conflicts of interest, campaign funds and other illegal stuff that has been going on for decades.
Did you hear the story about the Louisiana Lottery that sought legality through the North Dakota Legislature in 1892? One of the plotters pulled out a gun and everyone ran for the hills. The O.K. Corral was busy at the time so the shooting was postponed until 1922.
People are also reading…
As I was saying, the Legislature threw a fit in both the 2013 and 2015 sessions when bills were introduced to create a statutory ethics commission. Not seeing their own conflict of interest, legislators killed both measures.
So the folks who saw money moving in dark alleys decided to go around the Legislature by initiating a constitutional amendment. So the issue moved into the public arena where the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce, the North Dakota Petroleum Council, Lignite Energy Council, and miscellaneous others put up $458,000 to defeat the measure.
According to Ballotpedia, several national organizations of a populist design raised a million dollars to pass the measure. Which happened by a vote of 169,676 YES and 146,709 NO, not a sweeping mandate but you only need one.
The people who have been around government for a couple of decades know in advance that passage is only one step and a mighty small one because the legislature is going to control this game no matter what the score.
Keep in mind that the mood of the legislators about ethics was not good. They killed the plan twice and then the arrogant public decides to ram it down their throats. That did smart some.
Unfortunately, the Legislature was waiting at the pass. It was important to dry gulch the ethics commission before it did any political damage. So the Legislature is doing its unethical best to control or administer the commission to death.
Now there are icebergs to be worried about whether you have the Queen Mary or a raft.
Without the benefit of the ethics commission, Forum News Service reporter Jeremy Turley put together an extensive report on retiring lawmakers burning the last bit of coal in the fireplace, reaching for the last banana in the bunch. Going on junkets where the shrimp are big.
Then another Forum reporter, Patrick Springer, reported that North Dakota lost $680 million when oil frackers flared 226 billion cubic feet of natural gas in the oil fields because it was cheaper for the companies.
But there is more – a lot more. The fracking companies have been getting away with murder when it comes to state regulation. Just about every violation is soft-peddled.
Initially, big fines are imposed but they are negotiated down in the dark; spills were reported as negligible but there is a lake in Olson’s pasture and a black streak in the Little Missouri River. And we haven’t even brought up the purchase of legislators with campaign donations.
Where there is smoke, there is fire. Or is it flaring? It will be the reporters who find out.
Lloyd Omdahl is a political scientist and former North Dakota Democratic lieutenant governor.
